At some point in our lifetime, we or someone we know has taken a job purely based on money or some other form of compensation. I feel that it is very abnormal for people to do work nowadays unless they are receiving some form of payment. In this blog post, I will discuss a time when I did the same and took a job based on compensation.

When I was in high school, I believe around my sophomore year, I had to do volunteer hours for my soccer club and referee recreational soccer games. Depending on your level in the club, you would have to do more or fewer hours but everyone had to do a minimum of 5 hours of work. Some parents in the club did not want to take time out of their weekends to referee games, which is where I came in and did their hours for them, but not for free. Parents would often ask me to complete their mandatory hours for them in exchange for money and in some cases, the parents were very generous and paid me over a hundred dollars. As a high schooler, getting money was not an easy feat so refereeing on the weekends became a job for me and I would try and make as much as possible.

With refereeing, my behavior didn’t really change and if anything it made me more grateful for having people trust me with their time. Trust nowadays is hard to come by so I try to make the most of it when people trust me. As time goes on, compensation will change my behavior as it is my way of maintaining a lifestyle and preparing for my future.